A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 749 



and bureau for conducting statistical and other inquiries and organ- 

 izing research. The number of States which already had begun to 

 move in the direction of State encouragement of forestry, the move- 

 ment under way in other States looking to similar action, and the 

 conception then generally held of the respective spheres of action of 

 the Federal Government and the States doubtless worked together 

 to inspire the belief that the actual organization of whatever admin- 

 istrative activities might be found necessary would and should be 

 provided for under State legislation and through State organization. 



The provision actually made by Congress for the new activity 

 was at first most meager and for a quarter of a century too insignifi- 

 cant to permit of any great expansion. The clearing house and 

 bureau of information was at first a purely one-man affair. Never- 

 theless, as time went on the work began to get on its feet, and by the 

 close of its first decade had reached the point at which it was capable 

 of real usefulness as a central agency for promoting the forestry 

 movement throughout the country. 



The bold advocacy by Secretary of the Interior Schurz of the 

 inauguration by the Federal Government of forestry administration 

 of the public-domain timberland had an instantaneous effect on the 

 conservationists of that period. The proposal was forthwith adopted 

 as a part of the forestry program for which the support of the coun- 

 try was being sought. Bills looking to the inauguration of Federal 

 administration were introduced into Congress in increasing number 

 and with increasing support from without Congress. On the other 

 hand, the opposition of antagonistic Western interests created obsta- 

 cles too great to be overcome down to 1891, when there crept through 

 unnoticed, in the crowded closing hours of the session, a briefly 

 worded amendment authorizing the President to establish forest 

 reserves. 



It is now time to turn back to the development of State forest 

 administration. 



THE FIRST STAGES OF FORESTRY ADMINISTRATION BY THE 



STATES 



Down to the year 1885 no governmental agency had been set up 

 in the United States to undertake duties of an administrative char- 

 acter with respect to forestry, and no State had inaugurated forestry 

 work as a continuing activity. After nearly 20 years of widening 

 agitation, which had borne fruit in legislation by nearly half the 

 States and by the Federal Government, almost nothing of real impor- 

 tance had been accomplished. The forestry movement had got off 

 on a false start. It had formulated and pursued ill-advised objec- 

 tives, and it had selected impractical means to attain them. The 

 only form of public action which it had been able to propose and 

 get adopted with a view to meeting public needs for future timber 

 supplies or providing the country with ample new forests was to 

 pass laws extending inducement and encouragement for tree planting 

 by private landowners; and while millions of trees had been planted, 

 little of permanent value had resulted, from the standpoint of finding 

 a practical answer to the country's forest problem. 



This is not to say that tree planting in the naturally treeless prairie 

 and plains region of the West failed to produce substantial results. 

 Those who settled and built up the country felt the need of trees for 



